Tag Archives: channel

So yesterday as I was working on my Starbound Hardcore, I had a long winded talk about a subject for a span of 2 or 3 episodes. Listening back to the discussion, it’s a constant reminder of how I operate as a person. When I’m motivated and dedicated, I could talk about the subject; more so compared to off-the-cuff discussions.

I realized also recently, I’ve been watching a lot of airsoft videos again. I’m not quite sure if I should pick it up as a hobby. The reason behind it is the initial cost and availability where I live. I have done the reading and a bit of research in the past, but I think what’s stopping me is where to play and where to buy and store my equipment. Assuming I do have the equipment and based on what I watch on YouTube, I think I would prefer the milsim (military simulation) games which isn’t viable within a large city like mine. For me to transport this equipment, it would cost a lot from home to field since most milsim games seem to occur about a 2 hour drive away from my city. Along with milsim games, I do like the team aspect of these games which also brings us to the next point; meeting people. The question is not just meeting new people but how to meet up with these team organizers and finding the right team for me. Personal preference I would prefer a team closely aligned to my values and ethics to what a team is and a local team for meet ups to work closely with them. From my perspective a team should be able to work together regardless of skill. Skill is what it takes to survive but teamwork keeps the group together. That is a blog post for another time. In the moment and at this time, I am interested in playing airsoft but I feel I need to be under someone’s wing and guide me through it.

This year will be unlike the few years I have been on the blog. Though I will be still writing, I am pushing to organize everything a little bit. Therefore some changes will happen.

The Schedule. Stuff IRL

First off, I will not be changing my blogging schedule. Yup. Once a week every week until the summer. I cannot forecast the summer because of new developments in my life. With that being said, I have been employed which is a relief. However the most I can say is financially, I am still having trouble. By trouble, I mean I need a steady income. As of now I’m out of the red, but still trying to hold on the ground I’ve gained from the past couple years of spamming my resume out.

Secondly as of late 2014, I’ve moved away from reviewing video games. That’s just because rather than posting a review, my reviews are now in video form. On my gaming channel on YouTube, I’ve decided to play the games I like and share it to the world. Along with these games, I am looking into getting new games to review and even play through its entirety. So anything directly to gaming will go straight to my YouTube channel; my thoughts, opinions and views will be here.

Community Comments!

Over the past few years, I’ve have been timidly contributing to the WordPress blogging community by commenting on other blogs. Most of the time I realized I would post a wall of words on other people’s posts. To me I like my thoughts to be thorough which usually doesn’t result in a concise comment. So as I am now in the fourth year of my blog, it’s time that instead of building walls (of words), I start posting them here. Out of my schedule, these posts should not count towards my actual blog posts. There are some amazing bloggers out there who post some amazing content to make me think and contribute to their blog. It is only fair that I show you guys how I’m showing you readers how I’m contributing back to a community who has read my grief.

What about summer?

So one of my employers require me to be away for the summer. I am not quite sure how I am going to continually forward posts since I don’t think where I’m going will have a connection or access to my laptop or home computer. If WordPress allows, I will have some posts lined up for the summer until I return. YouTube is another matter. Since I don’t think YouTube requires me to be on to publish in real-time, my channel might go on hiatus. The same can be said for my blog if I can’t find some way to post ahead of time but only publish on specific dates. From what it looks like, the hiatus will be about 2 months long. In internet time, that’s a really long time.

2015 will be a very busy year for me. For my profession life and my hobbies I’ve created over the past few years. I would like to thank you guys for joining me from the start. If you guys just joined, I hope you guys keep coming back.

I’m never much of a Boxing Day kind of person. The one time I went to buy something on Boxing Day, the lines were very long and the stores were very crowded. Let me just say, for all the risks, the rewards are few.

The first and last time I ever went out on Boxing Day was back when I picked up my Blackberry Playbook, at the time it was half off because the company wasn’t making much of a profit of them. So I though it would be a good time to snag one at a very low price. So I went out of the 26th at five in the morning. At first walking along the darkened empty streets seemed eerie as a few passing cars come and go on a large avenue. Human silhouettes indistinguishable to the eye as I briskly paced myself on a December morning. As I approached the downtown shopping centres, I could hear people talking as the bright lights of the square gleamed the pavement with everlasting light. Already I could make out a few rows of people standing outside stores.

The line to the store I had my eyes on spanned up the street and around the corner for another block length. As opening was upon me, people began to fill the stores; moving the line as they entered. By the time I was inside, it was packed and hot. Chaotic movements jolted me back and forth like a violent wave. I checked the time when I paid for my new tablet and found it was almost 8. Two hours of waiting and one to wade through the bodies to get something that was worth under 200. Though a bargain, it was still stressful and chaotic.

For though boxers of Boxing Day, good on you because you can do this every year to catch some deals. For those curious of cheap wares, heed a warning from me. Don’t buy anything from Boxing Day that you really want. Seriously, dedication for a small material object is not really worth the stress. If you are planning on buying something on Boxing Day, I would suggest finding something you would like to have but wouldn’t be disappointment when it’s out of stock. You can either choose the long early line or sleep in because no worries, right? It’s not like you really want it that bad. When you get there it would still be packed with other customers, just calmly walk through to what you want to buy and pick it up, go straight to the cashier and calmly walk out. And there you go, one item with less hassle and stress compared to what I went through.

This year with my gaming channel, I really wanted a new pair of headset and a new hard drive. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really muster for the challenge. After going through this once, I just couldn’t deal with electronics stores being packed with people. It’s not really much of a hardware upgrade, my hard drive is running low on space but I can manage. As well, my headset is kind of getting old and in a deteriorating state; but it’s not worth the $20 I could save on Boxing Day. Like many things in my life, I can wait. I can wait to find what I need and want because I’m fine with what I have now. I think that’s where I will end off the last blog post of 2014.

The past week felt like a breath of fresh air. Ever since the start of Autumn, I have been really busy with a lot of developments in my personal life. For the most part, I’m sorting out the finer details of adulthood and finally feel committed to improve myself. Still have I not found a place I want to be just yet, but I hope the shotgun of requests will find a way to get me somewhere.

This year with more games on my Steam account, I’m starting to get a lot of game updates around autumn. Though I am more than happy to play through these games. I worry I might be losing steam (Pardon the pun) when it comes to recording new gameplay for my YouTube channel. Regardless, I will not give up on my channel just yet. For now as more new content, I would like to get into multiplayer co-op matches if I find them. Beyond recording, I’m playing through the new content from Interstellar Marines update 14, though it’s limited. I’m still hooked on playing Star Trek Online and it’s Delta Rising content has left me playing an hour a day exploring the new end game. On the Insurgency front, the new Nightfall DLC looks interesting; at the moment of this post, I’ve taken a peak of it on release. I feel like I could record more if I could somehow get my hands on new games. For the moment, I’ll settle with what I can buy and download. Gaming on a budget has it’s downfalls.

With YouTube and the new stuff, I have lacked in exercise. I promised I would keep exercising but I want to do more then just push ups while I wait for videos to render. I want more than just the usual. I would join gym but at the moment, my finances does not accommodate a gym membership at the moment. Maybe having a running buddy would be even beneficial, if I had a friend who enjoyed exercise. I’ll keep trying to stay fit while the weather gets more forbidding.

For now the new things in my life has to take precedence over the stuff I’ve created the past 10 months. Though the old and new my clash, both from my point of view have a part into my future. The only question is how much and would it be good for me.

I’ve never put in so much time for one thing I wanted to do; okay, I put in a lot of time for a few things. However I never been devoted to be a bit creative. It was always something I lacked. I can be creative at times to think of ideas (thus how this blog was born) but I never really been a visually creative person. Start of this year, I decided to make let’s plays on YouTube which somewhat harkens back to my old Black Ops gameplay. I always wanted to do something constructive or creative to develop something I had problem learning. For my new readers, I’m ADHD and I am not a very creative person; quite the unusual irony.

Over the past six months, I learned a few things from playing and recording video games. To veteran recorders and producers of gameplay, it may be obvious; but I do admire the fact the consistent and persistent nature of YouTubers. They remind me the humbling experience of being unpopular, bottom of the pyramid, way of finding a style. To those who haven’t had their mind set on WordPress wanting to do LP’s or record gameplay, I want you to learn from someone who doesn’t have a following and started with pretty much with a lot of time, plentiful amounts of procrastination and no money to put forward to upstart a hobby or interest. Take this as a warning or advice (or both).

Starting off, I needed a recording software. Something light on the system and can record the amount of time you need. For me, I need it to record continuously because I never know if there will be some good action bits. At the moment I’m using Open Broadcaster Software because it allows a one click solution with minimal set up but enough functionality to make changes to the encoding. At the beginning, I downloaded the program to replace CamStudio because the installation file I downloaded for The Dead Linger didn’t work. Both are free, but after having an experience in both products, I’ve come to realize the interface with OBS is easier and built towards online streaming and local recording than for tutorials and short presentations.

When I started with Banished LP’s, I recorded them in large huge batches. I’m talking like files sizes of 1GB times how much time I had. So in under x amount of hours, my hard drive would be capped out on raw video files. I think at one point I had 10 files lined up for uploading and those uploads would take up to 12 hours per file to upload. So it would take about 10 days to upload if you include time for me to just use my internet connection for anything besides uploading. So in the 30 plus episode run, it took a day each. However in TubeStar, the same 20 minute file would take about an hour or two. So if the game is very action based would require more frames. Therefore the file size will be larger compared to text based or 2D games. This is true in OBS by the way, try with your recording software of choice!

In making The Dead Linger, I found a difficulty with sandbox games where travelling is required. For one thing, you have to fill the time walking with something interesting. If you are a quiet gamer, definitely cut out the nothingness. If you have something to talk about, just talk and don’t hold back until you’re done. It can be interesting, informative, funny or just be somewhat like a small video journal about your life while you play. Just let it out and even if you are going to cut it, then cut it but it’s always to have some extra bits to have more to add if the video is a bit short.

Length of the video to me is only the limitation to the audience and your hard drive. However personally, I think people have a bit of a short attention span. With that in mind, I do my best to make my videos 20 minutes or less. At first, I aimed for 20 minutes. Now I end it when I think I have enough content or I set an end point. I guess it’s because Defiance has missions unlike The Dead Linger. So I can end one mission as a video. What I’m trying to say, find a way to end a video.

Early on, I said I’m not a very creative person. The truth really unfolds if you watch my YouTube channel compared to everyone’s LP. I don’t have a visual introduction, no end cards or effects. I just play as is and I do that because two main reasons. First being theory; I don’t really want to promote myself, I want to promote the games I play. The games are the feature on my channel and I want people to find their niche in video games. The large part I want them to see my video and try the game themselves. I think the second reason why I don’t have visuals is obvious. I’m not the best editor or graphic designer. I’m usually the idea man, the guy who wants to do it and get it done. I like to be the person to establish point A and point B and let people define the direction of travel. But at times, I do regret I’m not a visual person. I wish I could have some creativity so I could make graphics. But for now, you got to like where you start out. You don’t have to be established to start something, you just have to start.

Have I learned everything from making videos? I’m just about to get started. I don’t have a job, I don’t have the creativity, I don’t have best of anything. I just do it because I go in knowing I could fail and I would learn something from it or succeed and gain something I don’t really know and I could get interested into it. I might not make money from it because I consider myself small time but it doesn’t matter. For better or worse, I do what I love. I love video games, I love playing video games and I want to share my love with people who are still finding their love.

If someone who loves to teach a noob about graphic design and video production, let me know!

With only one more day until the release of Banished, I’ve found more games I want to play in the Steam store. Helpful as it is, it doesn’t help making me want to play those games. The games I’m being pulled towards? Banished because I want to play it on my revived YouTube channel. Recently I found Takedown: Red Sabre in the Steam store for under 2 dollars as a promotion. Though I think by now, the price has went back up so I’m disappointed. Recently I have this fascination for ship simulators, especially Artemis the spaceship bridge simulator. I could always wait for Pulsar: The Lost Colony and find a few other people to play.

On a positive note, I think I’ve done all I can for my recording set up. Banished is going to look amazing on low quality! From my last batch of recordings, I can push the quality to 720p but I would suffer a long upload time. In the interest of time and sanity, I decided to keep the video format to one long reel of 20 minutes long so my upload time would take a quarter of a day or less. Considering whatever I do would slow down my connection, it’s invaluable that I do other things until I feel I could do something worthwhile on YouTube. In many ways, I think the channel will be more of a video outlet and supplement to my blog. Talking about stuff and just my open dialogue to the world. Also give you a look at the games I like to play might encourage some people to give them a try as well.

Besides the technical work, I think I’m I need to find someone with talent in graphic design to do my channel art and icon. Not too worried about it at the moment, but I’m considering to make it part of my digital life.

Until next time, feel free to check out my channel and have a mellow Monday!